


Epiphany

by champagneleftie



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 11:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16831816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/champagneleftie/pseuds/champagneleftie
Summary: There will come a moment, a few years down the line, when Emma will look back at this moment and have an epiphany.





	Epiphany

**Author's Note:**

> A summer fic for Evakteket's SKAMenger hunt, and the prompt mittens. This is un-betaed, because I just didn't have the patience for that today...

There will come a moment, a few years down the line, when Emma will look back at this moment and have an epiphany. 

There will come a moment, a 3 am moment, thoughts racing with long-passed teenage embarrassments, when she looks back and realizes: that maybe not all girls make themselves sick with jealousy of their best friend's other friends. That not all girls learn how to French braid just to have an excuse to run their fingers through long soft curls. That not all girls live for the smiles of other girls. 

This is not that moment. 

In this moment, Emma finds herself outside Sonja’s apartment building, staring at her name next to the buzzer, and hesitating. 

It's June, late evening, almost night, but still suffocatingly hot. Too hot, really, for the leather jacket she wears as armor, to show the world – herself – that she can't be hurt. Not anymore. Not by boys. Not by her so-called friends. She's over it. 

But now she feels a little silly. Like a little girl, playing dress up. Trying to impress. 

Typical. 

She's always had a hard time making friends with girls, just for that reason. She could never stop trying to impress them. With her boyfriends. With her experience. Tales of wild nights. 

The plan, when she started high school, had been to break that pattern. Turn over a new leaf. Make some real, true, deep friendships. Find her crew, her gang, girls who would be by her side for the rest of their lives. 

And then she’d come back after Christmas break only to find that somehow, at some point, she’s missed her moment. Again. 

This is why she’s always had an easier time being friends with boys. They were just… more straightforward. No games, no facades. She always knew where she had boys. Older boys, especially. Knew exactly what they saw in her, wanted from her. Knew how to look at them adoringly. Knew how to let them teach her, about music and alcohol and drugs and sex, knew how to tamp down on the part of her mind which wanted to show off back. 

Knew how to be the girl they wanted her to be. 

Or so she thought, anyway. If there’s anything she’s learned in the past year, it’s that no one is ever showing their true self to the world. Everyone is always trying to front like they’re much cooler, much better, than they really are. 

Including her. 

She fists her hand around her tote bag. It’s light enough to be annoying, to be basically impossible to carry properly. Like air at her side, it’s only real substance the weight of her nervous expectations. 

The only things in it are Sonja’s mittens. 

It’s so stupid. This whole thing is so stupid. It’s the middle of summer, the middle of an uncommonly hot summer, even. Sonja’s probably forgotten all about those mittens. It’s not like they’re anything special, just some cheap acrylic things from H&M. She’s going to think Emma’s an idiot. A kid. 

For some reason, that’s the worst reaction she can imagine. Worse than indifference. Worse than confusion. Much, much worse than polite faux enthusiasm. 

Please, please don’t let Sonja think – don’t let Sonja realise – that she’s just a kid. 

Everyone’s always putting up a front, always pretending to be cooler than they are. Except Sonja. Sonja’s exactly as cool as she appears. 

And she’s pretty sure that she actually likes her. Actually likes spending time with her. 

Or – liked. Six months ago. 

Who knows what she thinks now. 

She’d lent her the mittens the second time they met. The second time they were abandoned, together, and Sonja was furious, and Emma was furious because Sonja was. She’d been freezing in her Halloween costume and a way too thin jacket, and Sonja had given her her mittens so at least her hands wouldn’t be cold. 

And then Emma just never got around to giving them back. 

Deep breath. It’s now or never. Emma presses the buzzer. 

The intercom crackles alive, and she almost thinks the can hear the sound echoing somewhere inside the building. 

No answer. 

Fuck. For all her imagining, she never pictured that she just… wouldn’t get an answer. 

The bag grazes her leg. 

What now? Just… go home? 

Well, there’s not much else she can do, is there? She can’t exactly leave the mittens here for Sonja to find. That would be so weird. 

Fuck. She’d really looked forward to seeing her, too. Seeing her in person. She’s really missed her these passed six months. She got it, she really did. If it were up to Emma, she’d much rather have gone travelling with Sonja than spend the semester ducking behind corners to avoid coming face-to-face with Isak and Even making out everywhere, and then to avoid them seeing her with Jonas. And it must have been so much worse for Sonja. 

But it really felt like she lost her the moment they were starting to become real friends. And, sure, she’s followed her on insta, tried to comment and like as often as possible (without being too… much), and in the beginning, they texted a bit. But that petered out after a while. 

She hadn’t even realized that she was back in Oslo until last week. From insta, again. 

Fuck, this was a bad idea. She’s pretty sure Sonja doesn’t like surprises. 

And surprising her with her fucking  _ mittens?  _ Mittens that must remind her of one of the worst nights, probably, of her life? 

What the fuck was she thinking? 

Thank god Sonja wasn’t home. Honestly. 

“Emma?” 

She’s barely managed to turn around before she’s enveloped in an all-encompassing, full body embrace. 

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?!” 

She smells exactly the same, sounds exactly the same, hugs exactly like she did the last time they saw each other. Looks just as effortlessly perfect as always, just with a tan and longer hair. 

“Surprise?” She means for it to sound cute and enthusiastic, but only manages weak and insecure. But Sonja just beams at her. 

“Oh, you’re so sweet!” She slips an arm though Emma’s. “Come on up. I just had the  _ worst  _ date, and now I want to crawl into bed and watch a movie.” 

She pulls her up the stairs, into her pristine, perfect apartment. Drops her keys in the dish on the hallway dresser and steps out of her ballet flats. She pulls off her sweater as she walks into the apartment’s single room, throwing it over the back of a chair. Picks up her laptop from the couch. 

When she reaches her bed, she looks back at Emma, frozen to the spot, still in her jacket and shoes. 

“Are you coming?” 

Emma can’t remember that she’s ever shared a bed with a girl before. It seems like one of those teen movie tropes that have always seemed just out of reach, just past the point where all her friendships always end. 

Now she lies perfectly still, terrified of somehow messing this up. 

Sonja’s duvet is somehow both perfectly heavy and deliciously cool, despite the tropical temperatures outside. The laptop lies on the floor, closed and forgotten. No more has been said of a movie. 

Sonja untangles an arm from underneath the covers and runs it over Emma’s shorn head. Her touch sends fireworks down Emma’s spine. They come to rest in the pit of her belly, warm and heavy. 

“Your hair is even shorter now,” Sonja observes. “It suits you.” 

“You grew yours out.” The tips of her fingers tingle with desire to touch it, to feel Sonja’s hair between them. 

Sonja gives her head a little shake against the pillows.    


“It was just easier than finding a hairdresser every few weeks.” 

“I like it.” 

The dusk makes the room grey, the shadows looming. The world silent. It’s the kind of silence that means things, but Emma can’t put her finger on what. Doesn’t know how to interpret it. 

“I brought your mittens,” she blurts out, just to break it. “I’m sorry for not giving them back sooner. I… forgot.” That’s a lie. She never forgot. She just, for some reason wanted to keep them. 

Sonja smiles at her, runs her fingers over her scalp again, and again. 

“That’s okay,” she says. “It was nice to know that your hands were warm, at least.” 

There will come a moment, when Emma will have an epiphany. A moment, when she looks back at this, and sees something that right now, she can’t. But in this moment, she drifts off to sleep, safe and easy, with Sonja’s fingers tracing patterns over her scalp. 


End file.
